Food fight: making sure our food is safe is harder than it seems.

• Author: Farquhar, Doug

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This year was filled with large-scale food recalls: E. coli in spinach, salmonella in peanut butter, melamine in pet-food, anti-freeze in toothpaste. In today's global economy, how does a consumer know what is safe? Would Popeye still rely on spinach, not knowing where it was grown or who, if anyone, inspected it?

For years Americans have taken the nation's food inspection system for granted, confident that federal oversight of food production ensured safety. But outbreaks of food-borne illnesses in the past year led many to question the competence of the federal food-safety system, and galvanized a number of states to take matters into their own hands. What they may not have expected is resistance from the producers. State legislators are finding that their constituents are more concerned about food safety than ever, yet even the simplest food regulatory bills stumble into the quicksand of federalism, protectionism and the food industry lobby.

FEDERAL FAILURE?

The spotlight has been on the agencies responsible for food safety, the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), which oversees the majority of food safety. Congressional hearings revealed that because of budget cuts since the mid-1980s, the FDA has reduced staff and limited inspections. FDA is responsible for 80 percent of the food supply, yet it receives only 24 percent of the federal budget allocated to food safety. This means that the FDA can examine only 1 percent of all imported food.

USDA's Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS), the other major agency involved with food safety, is responsible for the safety of meat, poultry and processed egg products. None of these products can be marketed without the "USDA Inspected" seal. But if a food-borne outbreak occurs, neither the FDA nor USDA can force a recall--Congress has denied these agencies that authority. (The exception is FDA's authority to require a recall for infant formula.) All the spinach recalls in California were voluntary, though companies can face civil and criminal penalties for not removing unsafe foods.

What emerged from the congressional investigation was a mixed picture of federal food safety; a tangled web of regulations and agencies, few with teeth, fewer with money; and a $68 billion loss in U.S. agricultural exports in 2006 due to unsafe food.

Part of the problem is that federal food safety oversight is splintered. According to the GAO, in addition to USDA and FDA, 13 other government agencies administer 30 different food safety laws. The Department of Agriculture requires meat and poultry to be shipped through one of 10 ports, but the Food and Drug Administration must inspect food products that arrive through 300 different ports across the country. The FDA inspects cheese...